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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Throwing Hard Tricks

Last night's raid was an interesting experiment in testing our own limitations. Once again I got to take Mara to kill stuff in the face. Sometimes... when Empowered Imp procs and I get a free, instant-cast Soul Fire all I can think to myself is TROGDOR! Burninating all the peoples! And the Trogdor comes in the night!

We steamrolled through the Lower Spire, which has become fairly commonplace for most raids, I think. I spent some time as Destro and some time as Demo and I haven't really been able to determine a difference in dps yet. Destro is predicted to do about 2k more dps (though, presumably, at the highest gear levels), but both specs seem to be about equal to me.

We were able to visit Heroic Lootship. I didn't notice much a difference between it and regular Lootship, except that it lasted longer. And gave better loot. Not being on the healing team, I don't know if either of our Holy Priests played chicken, but I assume they did not.

I guess this isn't being totally fair to the heroic lootship - we did wipe horribly the first time. Mord was trying to glitch Saurfang and ... missed, I guess.

But the second time the glitch was successful. I got to go over to the other ship and BURNINATE things. Totally fun. Those guys at the back of the ships are called Kor'kron Rocketeers and there's two of them. So I burninated one and Takk was all like 'rawr-ninja-rogue-attack' on the other. Stuff died quickly. But, I did notice (unless its a sad RNG thing) that you can't get Empowered Imp procs on the other ship. While, there's nothing in the tooltips or on wowhead that suggests a limited range, I would still assume its a distance thing.

We had with us a baby Boomkin that hit 80 a couple days ago. Andu has been leveling with us for awhile now and I think its particularly interesting to revisit the boss strategies before each fight from the perspective of having never done it before. Really, it wasn't that long ago for most of us and its just interesting to think about your own growth as a raider and a member of a team.

We were kinda mean to Andu. After the Lower Spire we went to visit the Crimson Halls. I really (really really really) wanted us to be successful here. My priest has seen the Crimson Halls twice, but this was my warlock's first visit.

And we wiped. Hard. Several times against the Blood Prince Council. I did get to try to tank Keleseth. Once. Apparently I sucked too hard to try again. And its killing me because I keep thinking about things I could have done better/differently.

The basic idea is: get threat on Keleseth, stay out of melee range, get dark nuclei, keep threat on Keleseth, win.

Get threat: Empowered Soul Fire (Instant cast), Empowered Searing Pain. (Guaranteed to crit, with +50% crit on Searing Pain for 6 seconds)There are some suggestions that a warlock's usual rotation generates quite enough threat to keep Keleseth entertained. But otherwise, Searing Pain should do the trick.

Stay out of melee range: Demonic CircleIn general, Keleseth will not move into melee range to attack. He stays at range. However, if you approach him whether purposefully or accidentally, he will probably one-shot you.

Get dark nuclei: Target nuclei, cast Corruption. Using a dot has the advantage of: if someone else accidentally does damage to it, the next tick of the dot will reset its aggro to you. The disadvantage is, of course, the nuclei may die. The part where this starts to break down is now I'm targeted on a dark nuclei and NOW I CAN'T FIND KELESETH.

Lesson 1: Create a Focus for Keleseth.

Keep threat on Keleseth: Searing Pain. Empowered Searing Pain when possible. The problem with this is that, even if you're not retarded like me and can switch targets efficiently, switching between dark nuclei and running around to get in range of dark nuclei and Keleseth affects the amount of time you can spam Searing Pain.

Lesson 2: Get help. When a dark nuclei spawns in nowhereville, have them call it out so you can find it. Even better, have them bring it into range of you, so you can grab it off them. Obviously, this may not be feasible if its on another tank or a healer.

We were eventually successful. At the end, Mord tanked Keleseth and the other paladin tank who was running with us took Taldaram and Valanar. It would have been nice to see the Wand of Ruby Claret, but I'm not devastated that it didn't show up.

But then... we... stopped. To be fair it was getting late and people needed to leave and stuff. But... but... I need to see the Blood Queen on my warlock.

I was a little sad, but we're going to try and pick it up again next week. Our visiting pally tank and holy priest are from Militia's other guild, so it seems they're free on Wednesday nights. Maybe we can make some good progression again and start maybe, hopefully taking a peek at the Lich King.

In case the announcement got skipped at some point: this is Beating your head against a Brick Wall: Hard Mode.

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About Me

I am a laid-back person who enjoys video games and spending time with friends. I like to create things; be it new characters, blogs or websites, or stories. I am an instructor of computer science. This allows me to bang my head against interesting problems on a daily basis and creates a continual need for caffeine and WoW.